It was my pleasure to be part of a 42-year tradition April 11 as the afternoon moderator for the First Amendment Forum at St. Cloud State University.

Monticello Times Editor-in-Chief and St. Cloud State adjunct professor Tim Hennagir coordinated the event with the help of student Nick Minock and others. Hennagir had some big shoes to fill. This was the first time since the 1980s that the forum wasn't coordinated by Mike Vadnie, who blessed us with his quiet attendance in the afternoon.

The morning session had a power-hitting panel. We learned as communications professionals from Hennepin County, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, and the National Sports Center in Blaine discussed the ways in which social media affect and have changed their jobs. They told stories of challenges and successes. They shared some of the tools that they use.

But it wasn't just them we were learning from. Attendees took to Twitter using the hash tag #scsufaf. When an expert on stage would talk about a tool they use, I and others would tweet links to those tools. It was interactive beyond any forum or class I've attended.

We even fielded questions from the audience using the hashtag. I think we got more questions because people who may be less prone to raise their hands could easily tweet their questions.

Another part of this tradition is the "Defense of The First Amendment" award. This year that honor went to longtime former St. Cloud Times editor Rene Kaluza, who I had known for some time but never met until that day. Her words were inspiring and her passion for good journalism supremely evident as she struggled to hold back her emotion. She, too, is an adjunct professor at the university, and I know of students who love going to her class — even the one that begins at 8 a.m.

The afternoon had me on stage with five other communications professionals, all of them working journalists or editors. We discussed how social media has made news faster, which is a blessing and a curse.

No longer are TV reporters simply focused on prepping their stories for the newscast. The Web and social media come first because they can be consumed sooner. High school sports scores and results are available in real time because reporters (and others) are posting them to social media sites immediately, often with photos or video. No more waiting for the next day's paper.

We talked about how that access challenges the media's bottom line. We discussed, while not with this label, how the First Amendment (freedom of the press) can interfere with the Sixth Amendment (the right to a fair trial) because of the risk it poses to making juries less impartial. This has always been an issue, but is more prevalent because of our hyper connectivity.

The most important part of our conversation was the ways in which journalists use social media and the Web to get leads. It's very much like intelligence gathering, where the observer starts seeing and hearing "chatter" and knows there's something that they need to investigate.

That was the key for this whole session. Journalists can get their leads through these new, less traditional methods, but they must still vet that information with as much care as ever.

I learned a lot at the forum. It wasn't necessarily that I received a ton of new information, though there was some. Participating allowed me to see what I already knew in a different light and it expanded my knowledge.

I was encouraged by the hunger for knowledge I saw in some students who attended. I was happy for the enthusiasm I saw on Twitter during and after the event. I'm thankful for the opportunity and hope to make being part of this community tradition a tradition of mine.

This is the opinion of Tim Johnson, a husband, father and an Air Force veteran. He has lived most of his life in Central Minnesota. His column is published the third Monday of the month. Follow him on Twitter @TimRelates.